Consumers desire laundry detergents including, but not limited to those in liquid and gel forms, that provide excellent overall cleaning. The detergent industry typically utilizes surfactants, among other things, to deliver this benefit. Due to increasing environmental sensitivity, as well as rising cost, the wide spread use of surfactants may be losing favor. Consequently, detergent manufacturers are examining ways to reduce the dosage of surfactant in the wash liquor, while still providing the consumer with excellent overall cleaning.
One approach for reducing surfactant dosage is to formulate laundry detergents with polymers. Like surfactants, polymers may be useful as releasers of soil from fabric. In addition, or in the alternative, some polymers may provide for suspension of soils dispersed in the wash liquor, which in turn may prevent their deposition back onto the fabrics being washed. However, some of these polymers may lose at least a portion of their efficacy when combined with the surfactants that they are meant to, at least in part, replace.
It would therefore be desirable to provide laundry detergent compositions comprising polymers that provide for good suspension of soils, such as greasy soils and the like, even in the presence of surfactants. Such laundry detergent compositions would provide for good cleaning even when formulated with low levels of surfactants and organic solvents. It would be also desirable to provide such laundry detergent compositions with multiple polymer systems that further provide for both good soil suspension and soil removal. Such a detergent composition would particularly be desirable if used in conjunction with fabric softeners, such as cationic coacervating polymers for example, which may drive deposition of soils onto fabrics. Moreover, it would also be desirable to provide these laundry detergent compositions in forms such as liquids, gels and combinations thereof.